Lauren and I stayed in Lucca for only two days after my arrival. Nanda's house is actually in the neighboring small town of Guamo, so I rented a bike from her neighbors one day and we biked into Lucca to check out the ancient Roman soldier-colony. There is a wall surrounding the old city, only about 4km around, so we biked that first and took a good stock of the city. Very quaint and adorable, I think, and it was my first taste of Italy. I think I was already in love. I had my first taste of gelato that day also, but I didn't think it was very good. I was hoping that it would get better, or else realize that the hype had made it into something that it was not. We left early in the morning on Friday, 8 August, for Florence (Firenze). That's also the day that the Beijing Olympics began. We tried very hard during our trip to watch some of the Olympics, but we really didn't see much of it and it really is unfortunate that the Olympics coincided (im)perfectly with my backpacking trip. They were over by the time I was traveling home again.
Florence from the train station was a disappointment, as I think is every city. Rick Steves (our perpetual tour guide) warned in his book that the train station was full of pickpockets -- so, green tourists as we were, we held tight to our bags and purses, strapped our money belts tight, and walked out into the wonder of Florence. By God it was beautiful! We walked across the river Arno to our hostel, thankfully they had rooms for us. This good luck was to follow us our entire trip.
Florence was teeming with tourists, street-vendors with carts full of cashmere scarves and "designer" purses, japanese tour groups, and asian weddings (for whatever strange reason). We went to the Central Market (Mercato Centrale) and bought some fruit, bread, and cheese. For just two or three euro each, we had food for two meals and snacks -- and we ate like kings. What can beat fresh bread and delicious local pecorino cheese? And peaches so ripe and delicious that the juice runs down your fingers and chin? I don't think we could have been any happier sitting at a three-course meal in a fancy restaurant. We felt like we were living the real Italy, like jeering locals surrounded by those "idiot-tourists."
We did a mad tour of the museums that Florence had to offer as well, and there are a lot. We went to the Accademia and saw Michelangelo's David. At first I didn't get all the hype. Here's this giant guy, supposedly the Dav
id but he looks more like Goliath, and he doesn't look life-like. He just looks like a white statue. He's not going to turn his head and look at you. He's a freaking statue. I was hopping mad that I had to pay 10 euros to see this statue that really did turn out to just be a statue. But I looked a little closer and, like everything, you start to notice details -- the rib cage, the muscles about his abdomen and hips, the way that his calves are flexed from his stance (yes, this is what made me really admire Michelangelo's skills -- the calves were just so real and perfect, my mom will understand how funny this is, calves that Megan could be jealous of!). I managed to snatch a bench at a good angle for us to sit at and admire him for a while. I was still mad about the 10 euros though, even if it was a brilliant statue. So I took a picture, which was technically illegal. Do you see Lauren's hand fan blocking me? I think it turned out pretty well, actually, and it was worth 10 euros!!!We also went to the Uffizi Gallery, which was astonishing. My favorite was the Botticelli room, which had both La Primavera and the Birth of Venus. If you leaned in close, you could actually see the brush strokes. I don't think I really appreciated art until that day. There was also a marvellous view of Florence from the top floor of the Uffizi and it made for a wonderful picture, also on my flickr page. I made it my mission while in Florence to see "all four Ninja Turtles" as I put it -- Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Donatello. In the Uffizi that day I saw Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Raphael. The next day we went to the Bargello, which is a statue museum, and saw Donatello's David, which seems to me a more perfect representation of the David anyway. Oh, also something to note -- Michelangelo's David has an over-developed right hand, which is supposed to symbolize the Renaissance, but it's just really freaky. And he needed to clip his toenails. Seriously. But Donatello's David was bronze and small, apparently it was the first male nude to be sculpted in a thousand years -- very influential.
Florence was beautiful, but I was glad to leave when we did. We had spent a few of our nights out on the town also, but we always seemed to run across the same band on the Ponte Vecchio playing the same old tired songs. All in all, I think Florence was Lauren's city and I was ready to move on to Venice, the ancestral home of my family.
We ended up having to pay 15 euro to make reservations on the train to Venice, but it was only for standing room -- there weren't any seats left. I won't complain about how it's Lauren's fault because she didn't see the little "R" in the travel book meaning that we needed to make reservations. No, I will not be bitter, despite the fact that it was a frustrating 4 hour train ride with no seats. But whatever.
We were finally in Venice! This time, there was no disappointment from the train station. you stepped right off the steps of the train station and into a piazza on the Grand Canal, right smack into the decadent splendor of Venezia herself. And the best part was, all you could smell was tourists -- the canals had no odor whatsoever. I was very much relieved! Our luck continued as we arrived at our hostel and sealed the deal on the last two beds for the next few nights.
I wish that we had more time to spend in Venice, it was really beautiful. It is just like you see in all the movies and the pictures -- singing gondolieri rowing their sleek black boats through narrow canals, tall buildings dripping with Byzantine and Moorish architecture, and impossibly narrow alleyways. Saint Mark's Square (Piazzo San Marco) was a bit dull by day, that's the place where all the stupid tourists let all the pigeons collect on their shoulders and arms and hands. Absolutely disgusting, if you ask me. Italian pigeons are lucky if they have even a few of their toes left, and they all look really diseased. Worse than normal pigeons, I think, and that's pretty bad. But at night San Marco was absolutely stunning, each cafe had a band, like a string quartet, that dueled with the other bands in the square. So every night was full of music. In the end, we weren't able to go into Saint Mark's Cathedral, but we did go into La Salute, a cathedral built in thanks to God for delivering the Venetians from the Black Plague. We also took a vaporetto ride (bus-boats) down the Grand Canal, and we cheated the expensive gondola ride (80 euro for 40 minutes!) by taking a cheap traghetto (50 cents) across the canal. So technically we were in a gondola boat, but it was only for 2 minutes or so! It was a lot of fun and infinitely cheaper.
Venezia is an interesting place. It was crowded with tourists, because we were there in August of course. But it is beautiful in a sad sort of way. You can see how the place would have been glorious and bustling a few hundred years ago. But now you can see the decaying decadence, the abandoned first floors which are regularly flooded and mossed over. Who knows how much longer Venice will stand as beautiful as it is now -- maybe the next time I am in Piazza San Marco, I will be standing ankle-deep in water. But I hope it will not be that long.
Some Italian for you to learn:
Piazza -- square
Vaporetto -- public transportation boat
Molto buona -- very good (as in food)
Museo -- museum
Augusto -- august
